


If He Jumped Off a Cliff

by goldfusion



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Accounting, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst and Feels, Art, Art History, Career, Cliche, College, Coming of Age, Europe, F/M, Fanfic, Feels, Insert, Literature, Love, Marriage, One Shot, Poetic, Readerfic, Romance, astroid, black hole, study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 17:52:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12237771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfusion/pseuds/goldfusion
Summary: You will be the person I think about when I’m 45 and I wake up in the middle of the night, beside my wife, whom I have probably not had sex with for at least 2 years. You come, you crash into me, make a mess of me, but I am not enough to disturb you in your course.You were made for greater things than I.





	If He Jumped Off a Cliff

They met through the sheer inelegance of Hajime rushing into the wrong lecture hall for the wrong class on the first day of their third year. He scrambled to the nearest empty seat, and as he did, there was almost an audible sound as relief settled over his form. She stole a glance at him, slightly bewildered.

It wasn’t until half way through the lecture did she feel a renewed sense of unease in the chair next to her. This time, she tilted her head to look, only to find that he was looking right back at her.

Are you okay? She asked in a slightly defensive tone.

Um. He cleared his throat, then paused. She frowned deeper with impatience. Hajime scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. He cleared his throat again and whispered: what class is this supposed to be?

It was Early Modern Art. 

He was in accounting.

The next week, he showed up again, and again the week after that. Despite having the seating of the whole classroom to his disposal, he inveterately chose the one next to her. Likely just out of habit. 

His persistence in not dropping out of the class that he had mistakenly registered in did little in helping him pass. What was even the difference between modern and contemporary art? How the hell do you meet a 15 page requirement for a paper about a single artwork?

His struggle was met by her altruism. Not a single one of his papers went on without her proofreading. To express his gratitude, he devoted to her his heart and soul and all the years left of his youth.

Until they were 25 and he was a certified accountant working a 9 to 5 and she had a master’s degree in art history.

Hajime had spent nearly two years working at an accounting firm. To say that it was a 9 to 5 was really just a lie because overtime was so frequent it wasn’t really overtime anymore. It was just time, spent at the office. Today was one of the rare occasions when he looked up at the clock having finished with one clients’ accounts, and it was actually 5pm. He could actually catch the ride home on the inhumanely compact subways during rush hour, and actually have dinner at dinner time. Just before he reached up to loosen his tie though, he hesitated.

Yesterday, she told him she got a grant for research in Europe.

Hajime sat back in his office chair and haphazardly began organizing his desk. Pens put back into pencil holders, papers neatly stacked into one pile. 

She was at first excited. Jumping up and down in fact. But as she was half way through explaining what this research opportunity meant, her features began to drop with her tone as she came to the realization herself.

Hajime never cleaned his desk. Europe was literally half way across the world.

He ended up wandering aimlessly in the downtown streets for an hour before boarding the train home. They didn’t talk about Europe that night. Or the one after. When the topic was finally brought up nearly a week later, it was she who said: maybe I shouldn’t go after all. It’s just so far. I’m sure I can find something domestic. 

As much as this was the answer he wanted to hear, witnessing it come out of her mouth angered him for some unfathomable reason. He immediately became defensive: if you’re doing this for me, don’t. Go to Europe if you want to. It’s a good opportunity. 

Her eyes grew wide. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again, sort of like a fish. After a few seconds of silent contemplation, she decided to be angry too.

We’re supposed to talk through this and work it out, she said, you could at least pretend to care!

Hajime took a deep breath. He was consciously aware of how much of a dick he was being, but his consciousness also couldn’t bother to stop itself. He turned his face away from her, looking around the room searching for his phone for no reason at all. He didn’t even have the guts to be a dick to her face. He responded in a lower voice: it’s your life, I can’t stop you or make decisions for you.

She stomped towards him, forcing Hajime to meet her gaze’s intensity, and said: I thought this was about us!

He didn’t respond.

Say something Hajime! What’s wrong with you? If you think Europe is far, and you don’t want to do long distance or quit your job, I literally just offered to stay. Why can’t we work this out?

Europe isn’t the problem, he finally said, his tone flat but far from impassive.

Then what is?

The problem is what happens after Europe? You travel, explore, and conquer. You tell me you want to live in Berlin, or Shanghai, or New York, or all of the above. I sit at a desk and type up numbers all day, and despite how taxing that is, I’m content with spending the rest of my life this way. 

She paused, words stuck in her windpipe. Then, in a smaller voice, murmured: what do you mean?

He also paused. Then shrugged. Then said that he didn’t know. Then went to bed. At 8pm.

After a week of being trapped in his mind and raging silence, Hajime decided to be a little less of a coward. He sat her down with some tea he made as an apology for being a dick and to bribe her into listening. The only thing was, when she was ready to listen, he realized he didn’t know what to say. He cleared his throat a couple times as she watched, then he said the only thing he could think of. 

Hey, he said, voice a little rough and a little coarse, maybe you were meant to be the queen of the universe. Maybe I was never meant to contain you. 

There was a long silence. His sudden declaration was perhaps too poetic for a mediocre Tuesday evening.

But I don’t want to be, she whispered, finally. I don’t need to be a queen. I can be whatever you need me to be. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.

He gave her a long, sincere look. One that made her heart fumble and quicken. Then, he frowned and his gaze become a tad bit more harsh as he tried to toughen up. One of them had to do this, and he loved her enough or too much to let that person be her.

When he spoke, his calloused tone tried but failed to conceal all the nights he stayed awake poring over her, wondering what in the world he could do to stop the traveling of light, to stop her from forging on ahead.

Oh how he tried to sound cold when he said: but if I jumped off a cliff, would you?

In order to impede the travelling of light, he needed to become a black hole.

Of course she knew he was deliberately trying to hurt her, so she could turn away crying rather than yearning, and despise him rather than miss him. But those words still pierced her with a reckoning. He was right. Of course he was. At this point, he was kinder and wiser than her.

The truth was, they were both tired. But they were both afraid to think it and speak it.

Is this a break up? She said, expression aloof.

He looked up at her sitting in their kitchen highchair, and cleared his throat again.

Her stiff shoulders relaxed. Are you sad Hajime? Or are you just relieved?

This time, he smiled. A smile like a cloudy night of a full moon. Graceful, but with a clandestine sadness.

This question was what kept him awake at night. He had prepared a mental script for the answer.  
You will be the person I think about when I’m 45 and I wake up in the middle of the night, beside my wife, whom I have probably not had sex with for at least 2 years. I will replay my life up until that point in my head. Engagement, marriage, the first child, the second, every birthday, every anniversary, and I will realize that I am so desperately regretting and hoping that the person lying beside me that night in this imaginary future, is you, and had been you all along. But the only way I will be able to fall back asleep is when I come to the conclusion and solace that it could never have been you. 

You are a beautiful star. An asteroid. You come, you crash into me, make a mess of me, but I am not enough to disturb you in your course. You will keep going. I wish I had the balls to stop you, but I don’t want to live the rest of my life knowing that I foiled your brilliance. I guess I am relieved. You were made for greater things than I. 

Don’t jump off the cliff with me.

 

*

She didn’t. She moved to Berlin. Then Shanghai. Then New York. After that, he stopped keeping track.

Yesterday was his 27th birthday. He woke up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night completely disoriented. He frantically looked around the room, for a second, mistaking the women that was his fiancée sleeping next to him as the girl who left to conquer the world.

**Author's Note:**

> You know that cliché/trope in almost every manga/anime romance where the guy leaves the girl either for a) a female childhood friend who suddenly appears and needs his help and companionship or b) some journey of self-discovery, and for some absurd reason the girl remains blindly loyal and rejects all advancements from other guys (who are actually there for her and care for her) and ultimately waits for the return of her SENPAI? Yeah. I hate that trope. So here’s a story in reverse, about a girl who learns to let nothing tie down her ambitions. 
> 
> This isn’t even about girls actually. Just go out there and conquer the world and take shit from no one. That’s the mood. 
> 
> Also tried out a little Cormac McCarthy with the lack of quotation marks. Hope the ambiguity contributed to the story rather than ruined it.


End file.
